A busy week for sport in Croatia; national handball team going to the Olympics was the highlight of the week.
Croatian handball team qualified for the Olympic Games, Slaven Belupo and Dinamo are going to play in the football Cup finals, Andre Agassi and Goran Ivanišević are going to play an exhibition tennis match in Umag, Total Croatia has gone Cycling… Those are the highlights of the past sport week in Croatia, and we bring you our review on April 11, 2016.
At the beginning of the week, while the handball team was preparing for the Olympic qualification tournament, Croatian football cup semi-finals were in order. The first clash ended with a surprise, as Slaven Belupo defeated firm favorites Rijeka and went trough to the finals.
In the other match, Dinamo was much better against Hajduk, it was not a proper derby, as the guests from Split were simply not good enough. It was not all bad news for Hajduk last week, they got a new President, and for the first time in history it is a woman; Ms. Marijana Bošnjak is the person chosen by Hajduk’s supervisory board. She will be in charge of the club in the transition period until new leadership is selected in a public tender.
Croatian A1 Basketball Champions League started, and in the first couple of rounds it is clear that it will be more unpredictable than we expected as there are a few surprise results already. Kvarner won against Zadar; Split won in the away game against Cibona, so it will be interesting to see if the ABA League members will have it as easy as we predicted.
If it wasn’t for the handball team, this would be a true highlight of the week; Total Croatia Cycling is born! The potential of Croatia as a cycling destination is huge, and there are several great initiatives happening all over the country. And all in isolation. Although cycling was a key component of Croatia 365, after 18 months, there are only eight cycling options on the official website, and none of these even has meaningful information. Total Croatia News will address that problem to produce the first comprehensive cycling website for all of Croatia in one place.
Tennis is always a big story in Croatia in the summer, and in the one approaching it will be even bigger as WTA Ladies Open in Bol returns on the WTA schedule. The ATP Croatia Open in Umag is here every year, so the organizers made sure this year’s opening will be a very special one. They plan the rematch of the Wimbledon 1992 finals, so Andre Agassi and Goran Ivanišević will hit the court in Umag this July.
This past weekend was all about the Olympics, and as the handball team started qualification tournament in Herning with a loss against Denmark, it didn’t look good at the time. Other bad news came from the water-polo national team; as they were preparing for the Olympic Games three key players have been suspended due to indiscipline.
On Saturday, handballers won against Bahrein, making sure that the win against Norway in the last match would be enough to qualify, and one more story came from Pula, as there are some controversies regarding the raising of the monument dedicated to late Mate Parlov, Olympic, and World boxing champion.
Finally, The Cowboys made it, as they played one more match to remember against Norway on Sunday, and checked in their ticket for Rio 2016.
